After returning to the dormitory, Louis directly overlapped positions with his substitute, seamlessly replacing it as if nothing had happened.
Unfortunately, no one witnessed this great disappearing act.
By sheer coincidence, not long after Louis got back, Snape—Head of Slytherin House—began a dormitory inspection.
Officially, it was to check whether anyone was absent, but Louis reckoned there was an eighty percent chance Dumbledore had sent him specifically to look for him.
Even if Louis hadn't left a single flaw, the old headmaster would still be the first to suspect him of stirring up trouble. After all, among those capable of causing chaos in the Chamber of Secrets, Louis was practically the only candidate.
Sadly for them, Louis's troublemaking ability was directly proportional to his ability to hide it—however much he could conceal, that was how big a mess he could make.
Once Snape left, Louis used a minor illusion to conceal himself, then opened the Soul Stone Page and flipped to Salazar Slytherin's page.
Now, no one would disturb him.
The stone page recorded Salazar Slytherin's entire array of skills in meticulous detail. A vast number of spells were categorized and neatly arranged across the page.
More importantly, every single skill possessed eye-watering levels and ranks. At a glance, it was nothing but rows of "Master" and "Legendary" tags.
(Ancient) Dark Magic Master (Legendary) Lv.10
(Ancient) Basic Magic Master (Legendary) Lv.10
(Ancient) Advanced Magic Master (Legendary) Lv.8
(Ancient) Curse Magic Master (Legendary) Lv.10
(Ancient) Item Crafting Master (Legendary) Lv.10
Fortification Construction (Legendary) Lv.9
Wilderness Survival – Wizard Edition (Legendary) Lv.10
"Did something weird sneak in here?" Louis stared at the last skill—Wilderness Survival—utterly baffled.
Why would a wizard even have this skill?
"It seems Salazar Slytherin did something after leaving Hogwarts…" Louis didn't believe that a legendary wizard would be incapable of hiding himself in the Muggle world.
Salazar Slytherin must have had far better options. At the very least, he could have secured a stable place to live. Yet he somehow trained himself to legendary-grade wizard wilderness survival skills—meaning that the latter half of his life was essentially spent wandering the wilds.
"So the question is, what exactly was he doing?" Louis wondered as he copied all of the skills without exception.
Perhaps because the Soul-Stealing Scroll had upgraded, or perhaps because these skills carried the "Ancient" prefix and were different from the Basic Magic Proficiency he had obtained from Quirrell, he discovered that he could also copy Basic Magic Master.
At that point, Louis no longer had any shortcomings.
Who needed teachers? Notes and journals were redundant too. Directly copying skills was far more efficient.
Now Louis could confidently declare himself the true heir of Slytherin. In this world, there was probably no one closer to Salazar Slytherin than him.
Others could only learn skills.
Louis, on the other hand, directly possessed Salazar Slytherin's skills.
Every single one of Salazar Slytherin's skills contained an immense amount of knowledge, technique, and experience. It was precisely this accumulation of knowledge and experience that elevated those skills to the Legendary tier.
Most importantly, all of Salazar Slytherin's magic originated from ancient, "crude but powerful" spells.
They were difficult to use and consumed enormous amounts of magic, but without exception, their raw power was terrifying.
Take the spell Salazar Slytherin used to attack Louis—the swarm of snakes spell. Its true name was Instant-Death Serpent Swarm. Forget being bitten; merely touching those snakes was enough to kill.
Using that spell against wizards was practically a waste. Its proper targets were massive creatures like fire dragons.
Unlike modern wizards, who need to work in teams to deal with a fire dragon, capable ancient wizards could do it alone—one wizard, one wand, one spell, and the dragon would be dead.
Of course, such wizards were rare even in ancient times—but their proportion was astonishingly high.
Or rather, it was precisely because magic was so difficult to learn that anyone who managed to grasp it was, without exception, a genius.
While browsing through Salazar Slytherin's skill pool, Louis even discovered a spell similar to Meteor Fire Rain—though instead of summoning a shower of meteors, it summoned just one.
This spell was considered an advanced application of summoning magic (a branch of Transfiguration). By combining it with astrology, the caster could directly summon a suitably sized meteor to smash into the target.
As for what qualified as "suitably sized," that depended entirely on the caster's ability and intent.
However, while Salazar Slytherin's ancient magic was fascinating and extremely practical, what truly captured Louis's interest was the Legendary-grade Curse Mastery.
This curse mastery encompassed special effects such as instant death, misfortune, disease, and more.
For instance, the mouthful of black blood Louis had spat out earlier was the result of a death curse. But no matter how powerful the curse was, all it could do to Louis was make him cough up a bit of blood—out of courtesy.
Speaking of curses, it was impossible not to mention a certain well-known curse in the Harry Potter world.
The curse on the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.
Every single year, that curse performed with remarkable consistency, reliably sending off one professor per term.
Either they were injured and forced to resign, quit of their own accord, harbored ulterior motives and did no good, or simply died.
Take this year's Lockhart as an example. Originally, everything seemed to be going smoothly. All problems had been directly or indirectly resolved by Louis—no Basilisk, no Chamber of Secrets adventure.
Just when Louis thought Lockhart would finally make it through the year safely, a Voldemort fragment suddenly turned around like it was possessed and utterly destroyed Lockhart.
It was absurd.
Aside from attributing it to an absurdly powerful curse, Louis couldn't come up with any other explanation.
Everything had unfolded so naturally, as if guided by fate itself.
So does the Dark Lord's curse seem impressive? In truth, it was nothing more than the bare surface of a true Curse Master's abilities.
Back then, Voldemort likely found fragments of curse-related knowledge in the true Chamber of Secrets, allowing him to learn the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor curse that influenced the very course of the wizarding world's history.
But compared to a genuine master, Voldemort's methods were still far too conservative.
In order to extend the curse's duration, he endlessly suppressed its power, to the point where it could only rely on vague, intangible luck to take effect.
By Louis's current standards, such a curse was a defective product—an act of desperate retaliation born from being cornered.
Because Voldemort's inheritance was incomplete, this was as far as he could go. If Louis were the one doing it, he could easily create a curse-bound item capable of sustaining a long-term, high-intensity curse.
In short—
It was ridiculously powerful.
----
RedX43's Note:
➤ Want More? Read Extra Chapters on Patreon!
➤ [email protected]/RedX43
➤ Thanks for the support! 🙌